Making open hardware ubiquitous by 2025

[kaspar]

I noticed that this goal is still up on the website and am personally reflecting a bit on it. It never said whether it was the start or the end of 2025

Aside from that, or whether it has been achieved or not, I think it was a good goal.

What do you think our next goal should be?

[robertlread]

“Make Open Source Research Hardware the default kind of laboratory hardware by 2035.”

Just a thought.

[naikymen]

Yes I really like the ubiquity goal! Much has been achieved, and I hope it will stick around as a guiding principle.

I’ve been sensing interest around making OScH commercially available everywhere, in the sense of acquiring and selling open hardware as a step towards ubiquity.

I feel that this is needed in order to get at @robertlread’s proposal (although I’d prefer a catchier version ).

[julianstirling]

Thanks for highlighting this @kaspar,

I agree it was a great goal. “What does ubiquitous mean in this context?” is a difficult question. But we have some vitories that I think we would have been delighted with going back 10 years:

• Unesco having a recommendation on Open Science that includes Open Hardware
• The European Commission, national and international governments, and international NGOs having definitions or programs that mention open hardware. See this from UNICEF
• The German standards agency DIN having a definitions for open source hardware

I think @robertlread and @naikymen make good points for where to look next, it isn’t about just being everywhere, it is about being the default choice. Both when designing and when purchasing hardware. But we do need something catchier, something as catchy as “Public money, public code”.

I would think about for linking it to Open Science as a whole, my first stab at an explanation and a paragraph would be something like:

For science to be impactful is must be reproducible, and for it to be reproducible every element of the process must be openly shared. This means we need open access, open data, open protocols, open source software, and open hardware. Our vision is that:

By 2025 open science will be powered by open hardware.

This seems like the sort of thing that should be discussed at a gathering, or if that is not possible by a working group that can get the pulse of the wider community?